{"id":30161,"date":"2025-11-17T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/?p=30161"},"modified":"2025-11-16T22:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T03:12:44","slug":"liberty-not-separation-the-historic-development-of-baptist-perspectives-on-church-and-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/article\/longform\/liberty-not-separation-the-historic-development-of-baptist-perspectives-on-church-and-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty, Not Separation: The Historic Development of Baptist Perspectives on Church and State"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a 2024 study conducted by Lifeway Research<\/a>, Southern Baptist \u201claity\u201d and \u201ckey leaders (other than senior pastor)\u201d were asked a number of questions about Baptist political theology.[1]<\/a><\/sup> One of these questions listed various rights included in the United States Constitution, and it invited respondents to select the \u201cfive most important to you.\u201d As one might expect for this demographic, the \u201cfreedom from laws establishing a religion\u201d is an important right, but only thirty-five percent of the laity and fifty-five percent of the key leaders who participated in the\u00a0survey<\/p>\n

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affirmed that this right was among the five \u201cmost important\u201d to them. When compared to the other options (see graph below), the \u201cfreedom from laws establishing a religion\u201d received about half of respondents\u2019 attention. The \u201cfreedom to exercise your religion\u201d was among the most important for eighty-three percent of laity and ninety-seven percent of key leaders.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

What is noteworthy is the collected reactions to a second statement, the one depicted below. The statement, \u201cGod establishes civil rulers and has given them authority to compel and guide people in matters of religion\u201d received a total of thirty-nine percent of laity and twenty-six percent of key leaders either \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d agreed with this affirmation.[3]<\/a><\/sup> From this report, it seems that both religious establishment<\/em> and the civil<\/em> authority to compel<\/em> citizens<\/em> in matters of religion<\/em> are at least somewhat agreeable to more than one-third of Southern Baptists in 2024.<\/p>\n

R. Albert Mohler wrote in his contribution to the 2023 B&H publication Baptist Political Theology<\/em>, \u201cIn decades past, a consensus in America had undergirded religious freedom\u2014we knew what it meant<\/em>, why it was important, and that it was rightly understood as America\u2019s first freedom. Now, however, we cannot take that consensus for granted.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/sup> Mohler was urging Baptists to engage in public speech and political action with an understanding that most<\/p>\n

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Americans no longer share their assumptions about religious freedom. However, the survey cited above would seem to indicate that Baptists themselves are quite conflicted about religious freedom in America. It is not just that the culture at large has forgotten Mohler\u2019s supposed assumptions about religious freedom; Baptists have always had some disagreement among themselves on the subject.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The fact is that while Baptists have aggressively pursued religious liberty from the beginning, not all Baptists have defined or argued for it in the same way. The present variety among Baptists about what religious liberty is<\/em> reverberates from a diversity in Baptist political theology at least since the beginning of the twentieth century. In Baptist confessions of faith from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, articles on religious liberty or freedom are common, and the terms \u201cseparation\u201d or \u201cseparate\u201d are regularly used to define the relationship between church and state. However, this vocabulary itself is ground zero for differentiating<\/em> Baptist definitions and arguments about religious liberty. The language of a \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d was not present in early Baptist writings on the subject, and this is one way of defining a Baptist political theology in competition with others.[6]<\/a><\/sup> In the historical development of the doctrine of religious liberty, there is a spectrum of Baptist thinking with a range of expectations and assertions about the relationship between church and state.<\/p>\n

Historically speaking, religious<\/em> liberty<\/em> among all Baptists\u2014from the earliest Baptists of the seventeenth century (in England to North America) to those who descend from them still today\u2014fundamentally means local church autonomy and voluntary church membership (i.e., no religious establishment by the state). Church autonomy is regularly defined in historic Baptist confessions and public arguments as the authority each local church possesses to define their own doctrine, membership, and leadership. This basic understanding of religious liberty is universal for Baptists, past and present.<\/p>\n

However, on one end of the religious liberty spectrum, some Baptists prefer state encouragement of religion and overt Christian influence in civil institutions and affairs (though never an established state-church). On the other end, some Baptists argue for a complete separation of church and state, in some cases rejecting explicitly religious laws and civil preference for religion. All Baptists in America, from before the nation\u2019s founding, have opposed a state-sponsored and state-regulated religious establishment (i.e., a state-church), but Baptists have <\/a>been divided on just what sort of relationship there ought to be between church and state. Thus, all Baptists have argued for religious liberty<\/em>, but separation<\/em> is not definitional to Baptist political theology. In what follows, I will argue for the use of a broader definition of religious liberty among Baptists, one that may include separation of church and state (as some do), but not necessarily so. In short, the separation of church and state is optional, not definitional, in Baptist political theology.<\/p>\n

The structure and content that follows will begin in Part One by framing two categories. First, Part One will note the novel use of the word \u201cseparation\u201d in Baptist political theology, and then it will outline two distinct epistemological traditions that tend to distinguish Baptists on this issue. After this laying this groundwork, Part Two will offer a survey of four Baptist confessions of faith, showing changes over time in the use of language and the Baptist understanding of religious liberty.[7]<\/a><\/sup> In summary, this essay will show that Baptists have universally embraced the language of \u201cliberty\u201d or \u201cfreedom\u201d regarding religion in relationship to civil government, and that the fundamental features of religious liberty (i.e., church autonomy and voluntary membership) are shared among Baptists.<\/p>\n

Part One: Categories<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A New Interpretation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On February 10, 1947, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black published the high court\u2019s ruling on a case known as Everson v. Board of Education<\/em>. One sentence from that decision (now infamous) says, \u201cIn the words of [Thomas] Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect \u2018a wall of separation between church and state.\u2019\u201d[8]<\/a><\/sup> This citation of Thomas Jefferson comes from a short letter he wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut. However, there is some question as to the validity of Justice Black\u2019s application of President Jefferson\u2019s interpretation of the First Amendment\u2019s establishment clause.[9]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Not quite three months before Jefferson\u2019s response to the Danbury Association, that coalition of twenty-six churches wrote to Jefferson as the new President of the United States to request his help in their efforts to obtain religious liberty from the General Assembly of Connecticut. Addressing Jefferson directly, they wrote,<\/p>\n

We are sensible that the President of the united States, is not the national Legislator, & also sensible, that the national government cannot destroy the Laws of each State; but our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved President, which have had such genial Effect already, like the radiant beams of the Sun, will shine & prevail through all these States and all the world till Hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the Earth.[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This flowery petition from the Danbury Baptists was clearly a request for liberty from what they perceived as the hierarchical tyranny of their state government. They wrote, \u201cour sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty\u2014That Religion is at all times and places a Matter between God and Individuals\u2026 That the legitimate Power of the civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor.\u201d[11]<\/a><\/sup> They were certainly desirous of limiting civil government in the arena of religious belief and practices, but it is not at all apparent that they wanted a separation<\/em> of church and state.<\/p>\n

On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote his extraordinary response to the Danbury Baptist Association. He assured them that he was in favor of religious liberty, and he even affirmed their conviction that \u201creligion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/sup> Then came Jefferson\u2019s innovative interpretation of the First Amendment, one shared by many Republicans for its benefit in the effort to diminish Federalist opposition to their political cause.[13]<\/a><\/sup> Jefferson wrote, \u201cI contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should \u2018make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,\u2019 thus building a wall of separation between church and state<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).[14]<\/a><\/sup> And it is this interpretation\u2014the claim that \u201ca wall of separation between church and state\u201d was built or constructed by the establishment clause of the First Amendment\u2014that Justice Hugo Black established as judicial precedent in 1947.<\/p>\n

Philip Hamburger, in Separation of Church and State<\/em> argued that Jefferson\u2019s interpretation was both consciously innovative and different from what the Danbury Baptists wanted.[15]<\/a><\/sup> Hamburger said, \u201cJefferson recognized the radical character of his letter, for he took measures to protect himself from what he assumed would be a clerical onslaught\u2026 [balancing] his anticlerical words with acts of personal religiosity.\u201d[16]<\/a><\/sup> More important to our subject at hand, Hamburger noted, \u201cAn American Baptist\u2014somewhere at some time during the early nineteenth century\u2014may have demanded separation of church and state, but no Baptist organization or even any individual Baptist has thus far been identified who unmistakably took such a position<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).[17]<\/a><\/sup> This, of course, includes the Danbury Baptist Association who never used the word \u201cseparation\u201d in any of their arguments before or after Jefferson\u2019s response to their letter. The Danbury Baptists did not even make a note of Jefferson\u2019s response in any of their meeting minutes, which was an obvious break from their norm. Thus, it was Thomas Jefferson (not the Baptists) who originally defined and argued for religious liberty as a \u201cseparation between church and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the separation of church and state is definitional to the Baptist doctrine of religious liberty, then it would seem odd that both the vocabulary and the concept of separation are absent during the first two hundred years of Baptist history. Indeed, liberty<\/em> cannot be synonymous with separation<\/em> in the historical record of Baptist political theology since many Baptists did argue for the former without promoting the latter. In many cases, Baptists argued for overt Christian participation in the civil government, including religious oaths for civil leaders and Sabbath laws. The reality is that belief in a complete separation of church and state is only present in one stream of Baptist political theology, which is a recent development among Baptists in America.<\/p>\n

Two Baptist Traditions: Distinguishing the Reformation Tradition
\nfrom the Enlightenment Tradition<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In his 2001 book, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, R. Stanton Norman described \u201ctwo\u2026traditions\u201d of Baptist distinctives, which seem to coincide with the chronological development of \u201cseparation\u201d in Baptist political theology.[18]<\/a><\/sup> The \u201cReformation tradition,\u201d wrote Norman, \u201ccontains the most historical continuity and theological stability.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/sup> Those Baptists in this tradition tend \u201cto use biblical authority to develop the other Baptist distinctives,\u201d such as ecclesiology and Christian experience, \u201c[and they] reflect the Protestant Reformation tradition of asserting the objective authority of the Bible from which other doctrines are advanced.\u201d[20]<\/a><\/sup> The \u201cEnlightenment tradition,\u201d in contrast, begins with \u201cChristian experience as expressed in soul competency and religious freedom.\u201d[21]<\/a><\/sup> It is from this basis, Norman argued, that Baptists in the Enlightenment tradition developed a \u201cdoctrine of the church\u2026 that highlights and protects individual autonomy.\u201d[22]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The interest of this essay is not so much in Baptist ecclesiology<\/em>, but Baptist political theology<\/em>, and yet the two are inseparable. Indeed, one might argue that Baptist ecclesiology is at or near the center of what connects all other Baptists distinctives (including religious liberty) and makes them consistent with one another. It is no surprise, then, that Norman concludes his contrast between the Reformation and Enlightenment traditions in the arena of political theology. He wrote, \u201cBaptists distinguish themselves from the Protestant Christians in their insistence that the church should remain independent from civic and ecclesiastical governments\u2026 Baptists believe no church should ever be united to any secular body or ecclesiastical hierarchy.\u201d[23]<\/a><\/sup> Such statements are agreeable to Baptists within each tradition, and a complete separation of church and state is not a necessary correlation.<\/p>\n

Norman said that the \u201cdifferences between the two traditions [i.e. Reformation and Enlightenment] do exist,\u201d but, he said, they are \u201cminimal and are more a matter of emphasis than major doctrinal content.\u201d[24]<\/a><\/sup> The distinct emphases vary in their greater or lesser attention to the corporate nature and function of the local church, including where Baptist distinctives touch upon the relationship between religion and the civil government. Baptists in the Reformation tradition tend to focus on the autonomy of the local church and the limitation of civil jurisdiction in matters where God has authorized the church to speak and act. Baptists in the Enlightenment tradition tend to focus on the autonomy of the person and the limitation of any and all outside regulation\u2014whether civil government or church polity\u2014in matters of the individual conscience.<\/p>\n

This essay has not yet proven that the verbiage of \u201cseparation\u201d is a recent development in Baptist political theology, but Norman named Edgar Young Mullins as the origin of his \u201cEnlightenment\u201d tradition, especially Mullins\u2019s highly influential volume Axioms of Religion<\/em>.[25]<\/a><\/sup> E. Y. Mullins published his Axioms of Religion<\/em> in 1908, in which he asserted that the \u201cconception of the competency of the soul<\/em> under God in religion\u2026 is the distinctive contribution of Baptists<\/em> to the religious thought of the race [of man]\u201d (emphasis added).[26]<\/a><\/sup> Norman believes that Mullins\u2019s work on Baptist distinctives was \u201cdominant\u201d in its influence because Mullins \u201cprovides careful argumentation for the philosophical and biblical bases for Christian experience\u201d and because \u201cothers regularly appeal to Mullins\u2019s arguments as the authoritative precedent.\u201d[27]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

At least from Mullins onward, personal and individual Christian experience is the epistemological starting point for many Baptists in America, and this includes political theology. It is beyond the scope of this essay to comprehensively show how the concept of separation between church and state shares philosophical agreement with the political theology of Baptists within the Enlightenment tradition. However, the verbiage of \u201cseparation\u201d materializes among Baptists about a decade after Mullins published Axioms<\/em>, and it is notable that Mullins chaired the committee that published the first confession of faith affirmed by a Baptist denomination to include the word \u201cseparate\u201d as the <\/a>optimal relationship between church and state.[28]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Today, Baptist historians of the highest caliber sometimes seem unaware that the language of separation has a distinct origin and tradition in Baptist political theology. Michael Haykin, Anthony Chute, and Nathan Finn have written that \u201creligious freedom,\u201d \u201creligious liberty,\u201d \u201csoul competency,\u201d \u201csoul freedom,\u201d and \u201csoul liberty\u201d are \u201cmore or less synonymous\u201d terms.[29]<\/a><\/sup> Of course, they do not include the term \u201cseparation\u201d here, but Mullins\u2019s \u201csoul competency\u201d is a phrase and concept that does not become widespread among Baptists until the early twentieth century. It is anachronistic to claim that \u201csoul competency\u201d is synonymous with \u201creligious liberty,\u201d since Baptists argued for religious liberty hundreds of years before the invention of this concept as Mullins defined it, and this also <\/a>fails to distinguish between the two traditions of Baptist distinctives. The concept of \u201csoul competency,\u201d as defined by Mullins (who coined the phrase), is not identical to \u201cliberty of conscience,\u201d which was a frequent phrase and concept in the writings of Baptists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.<\/p>\n

Along these same lines, R. Stanton Norman named only two <\/a>apparent options for a Christian political theology\u2014either the \u201cunion\u201d of church and state or the \u201cseparation\u201d of the two.[30]<\/a><\/sup> Norman does not seem to realize that a great many Baptists did and still do argue for neither union nor separation. And when the language of separation did not fit the historical reality, another Baptist historian contradicted himself from one sentence to another. Brandon O\u2019Brien wrote, \u201c[Isaac] Backus is best known as an early and tireless advocate for the separation of church and state<\/em> in the American colonies and the New Republic\u201d (emphasis added).[31]<\/a><\/sup> But then, in the very next sentence, O\u2019Brien wrote, \u201c[Backus] is known for portraying the ideal relationship between church and state as a \u2018sweet harmony\u2019<\/em> in which ecclesiastical and civil authorities operate in distinct but complementary<\/em> domains, a via media<\/em> between religious establishment on the one hand and the \u2018wall of separation\u2019 on the other\u201d (emphasis added).[32]<\/a><\/sup> And yet, Backus cannot have advocated for both a \u201cseparation\u201d and a \u201csweet harmony\u201d of church and state. O\u2019Brien seems to have embraced the language of \u201cseparation\u201d to such a degree that he cannot refer (at least in this instance) to Backus\u2019s political theology without it.[33]<\/a><\/sup> This shows just how pervasive is the assumption today that religious liberty<\/em> is equal to separation of church and state<\/em> among Baptists\u2014the specter of separation appears even when it is not present as a historical position, argument, or vocabulary.<\/p>\n

Summary of Part One<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Connecting a few dots and distinguishing a few traits of these two traditions, we can close with a couple observations. First, the verbiage of \u201cseparation\u201d was a new interpretation of religious liberty on the part of Thomas Jefferson in the early nineteenth century. Second, there are at least two traditions of Baptist epistemology (i.e., Reformation and Enlightenment), which each have distinct perspectives of Baptist political theology. Third, some Baptist historians appear unaware that Baptists have defined and argued for religious liberty without affirming a complete separation of church and state.[34]<\/a><\/sup> Part Two will examine the historical record of Baptist confessions in order to survey how Baptists themselves have articulated their definitions of religious liberty and how these definitions changed at a pivotal moment in time.<\/p>\n

Part Two: Confessions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What follows below is a brief survey of four important Baptist confessions of faith, each representing the organization and development of Baptist theology (in England and then in North America). The first two confessions provide documentation of dominant Baptist beliefs in seventeenth-century England as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, showing connectivity with one another over time and continuity on the fundamentals of religious liberty. The last two confessions show a novel development on the subject of religious liberty, though the authors claimed an intended continuity. While these four confessions are distinct in various ways, even spanning from England to America, they form a lineage of Baptist theology. In order to clearly see the family tree, some historical foliage is necessary.<\/p>\n

A Short Confession of Faith by John Smyth (1609)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The first self-conscious Baptist confession of faith was written by a man named John Smyth in 1609.[35]<\/a><\/sup> While there is some confusion over exactly when John Smyth was a Baptist, the Baptist historian James Leo Garrett places the writing of this confession during Smyth\u2019s short \u201cBaptist phase.\u201d[36]<\/a><\/sup> William Lumpkin wrote, \u201cSmyth seems to have written in his own hand a twenty-article Confession of Faith for perusal by the Mennonites and probably sent it along with the application for admission to the Waterland church of Amsterdam.\u201d[37]<\/a><\/sup> Smyth was an Englishman, who moved a small congregation of Separatist Londoners to Amsterdam in order to live among a civil polity that did not persecute religious dissenters. England was Protestant in the early seventeenth century, but at that time, it would not tolerate any religion besides the Church of England. Soon after Smyth moved from England to Amsterdam in 1608, he and his congregation embraced believer\u2019s baptism.<\/p>\n

Smyth baptized himself as a conscious believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ (a distinctive practice of both Anabaptists and English Baptists), and then he baptized the rest of his congregation.[38]<\/a><\/sup> Believer\u2019s baptism visibly distinguished those who were counted among this fledgling Baptist church, but they needed a confession of faith in order to articulate what they all shared as their distinctive doctrinal standard. So, Smyth published a confession of faith.<\/p>\n

The Short Confession<\/em> demonstrates the emphasis early Baptists placed on the definition and jurisdiction of the local church. Smyth said nothing there about the jurisdiction of the state or the responsibilities of the magistrate, but he outlined various kinds of \u201cpower\u201d which Christ has \u201cdelegated\u201d to \u201cthe body of the church.\u201d[39]<\/a><\/sup> Among these powers are \u201cannouncing the Word\u201d of God, \u201cexcommunicating\u201d those members who refuse to repent of sin, and \u201cappointing\u201d and \u201cdisclaiming\u201d ministers or pastors as leaders of the church.[40]<\/a><\/sup> And the highest or \u201clast appeal\u201d to authority belong to the \u201cbrethren or body of the church.\u201d[41]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

These three delegated powers of authority show up repeatedly in Baptist confessions: the authority of local churches to decide for themselves on matters of (1) doctrine, (2) membership, and (3) leadership. Baptists commonly believed that the church, and not the state, was responsible for establishing its doctrine, defining its membership, and recognizing or ordaining its leaders. It is precisely these powers that were denied to Smyth\u2019s congregation in England, under the civil and religious authorities that were united in the Church of England. For these earliest Baptists, religious liberty was tantamount to the ability of a church to exercise its own authority in these fundamental decisions, which they believed Christ had delegated to the church.<\/p>\n

Another confession of faith was attributed to Smyth soon after his death in 1612, but this was \u201can elaboration of the articles of John de Ries and Lubbert Gerrits,\u201d two Dutch Anabaptists.[42]<\/a><\/sup> Thus, it is not clear that one should categorize this confession as strictly Baptist, rather than Anabaptist. However, on the affirmations related to religious liberty, there is complete agreement with Smyth\u2019s earlier confession.<\/p>\n

In Smyth\u2019s second confession, Propositions and Conclusions Concerning True Christian Religion<\/em>, he did address the \u201coffice of the magistrate,\u201d and William Lumpkin wrote, \u201cIt was a pioneer for later Baptist confessions which almost always contained similar views.\u201d[43]<\/a><\/sup> Article eighty-four states,<\/p>\n

That the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, to force or compel men to this or that form of religion, or doctrine: but to leave Christian religion free, to every man\u2019s conscience, and to handle only civil transgressions (Rom. xiii), injuries and wrongs of man against man, in murder, adultery, theft, etc., for Christ only is the king, and lawgiver of the church and conscience (James iv. 12).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This affirmation of a limitation on the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate clearly claims Christ\u2019s positive jurisdiction in matters of religious doctrine and religious forms or practices. It is Christ, not the state or the magistrate, who gives laws that must be obeyed by the church and by the individual members of it. Notably, however, Christ and the church are not limited by the jurisdiction of the state. Furthermore, the standard by which the state is limited is that of Scripture (see the citation of Romans 13), which is the written word that conveys Christ\u2019s laws. Far from separating church and state, both of Smyth\u2019s confessions only limit the state\u2019s authority in matters that Christ has delegated to the church. And it is vital to also note that they limit the state\u2019s authority without limiting the church\u2019s authority to demand that the state remain within its boundaries assigned to it in Scripture.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thomas Helwys, along with about ten other Baptists, broke from John Smyth and his congregation shortly after they all arrived in Amsterdam. Helwys and his small congregation decided to return to England in 1611, despite the persecution they were sure to face there, and Helwys penned a confession of faith that reiterated the same essentials of religious liberty as Smyth had done. While Helwys and Smyth had their differences, on the subject of religious liberty and local church autonomy their confessions were in complete agreement\u2014both the state and the church must submit to Christ\u2019s transcendent rule, but the state must never presume authority over the church\u2019s doctrine, membership, or leadership.<\/p>\n

From that small church in England, led by Thomas Helwys, there blossomed an entire denomination. In 1660 the General Assembly of General Baptists met in London and adopted what \u201cbecame known as the Standard Confession of General Baptists.\u201d[44]<\/a><\/sup> Eighteen years later, fifty-four General Baptist churches signed the Orthodox Creed<\/em>, in an effort to publish anew a summary of their theology. Both of these confessions of faith affirm the same fundamentals of religious liberty that are found in the previous two confessions\u2014the church (not the state) has jurisdiction (delegated by Christ) over its own doctrine, membership, and leadership. Each of these confessions expand their description of the freedoms of both Christians and churches in relationship to civil magistrates, but neither adopted the language of separation nor did they affirm any such concept. Again, the jurisdictional limitations in these confessions are upon civil authorities, not Christians or churches.<\/p>\n

The second of these two General Baptist confessions (the Orthodox Creed<\/em>) was occasioned by the previous publication of a new confession by the Particular Baptists in London. As some religious restrictions were being lifted in England, after the restoration of the British monarchy under King Charles II in 1660, separatists became prolific in publicizing their theological distinctives. At that time there were two main streams of Baptists in England, General Baptists and Particular Baptists, each named for their view of the extent of Christ\u2019s atoning work at the cross. But both of these Baptist denominations shared a great deal in common on their views of religious liberty, especially on those fundamental features.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the Atlantic, in the New World, Baptists were emigrating from Europe and also making new converts from among the colonial population. In Virginia and North Carolina, the earliest Baptists acknowledged the Standard General Baptist Confession<\/em> of 1660.[45]<\/a><\/sup> However, the small number of General Baptists from old England were soon surpassed, and by the middle of the eighteenth century, Baptists in America were a new breed. From the First Great Awakening (1740\u201380s), there grew a massive swell of Separatist Baptists, largely from Puritan descendants in Congregationalist churches. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Separatists Baptists were abundant in New England, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.<\/p>\n

These new Baptists wasted no time in forming associational structures, based upon shared Baptist distinctives and geographical location. The Danbury Baptist Association was established by twenty-six churches in Connecticut in 1790. \u201cThe Sandy Creek Church planted congregations throughout the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia,\u201d and many of these formed the Sandy Creek Association in 1758.[46]<\/a><\/sup> The Charleston Association was formed by churches in South Carolina in 1751, and it was patterned after the earlier formation of the Philadelphia Association in 1707 by \u201ca number of churches in New Jersey and Delaware\u2026 together with [an influential church at] Pennepack.\u201d[47]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Association was the first organized collective of Baptist churches in America, and this association made the \u201cearliest known reference by an association [in America] to a confession\u2026 in 1724,\u201d which indicated that these churches (at least informally) \u201cowned\u201d the Second London Confession of Faith<\/em>.[48]<\/a><\/sup> In 1742 the association formally \u201cadopted the Second London Confession of Faith as [their] confessional standard, though two chapters were added.\u201d[49]<\/a><\/sup> While the Standard Confession<\/em> and the Orthodox Creed<\/em> of General Baptists had some influence in the new world, the Second London Confession<\/em> was the most widely pervasive in America through its Philadelphia Association adaptation.<\/p>\n

The chapter on \u201cChristian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience\u201d is number twenty-one in both the Second London<\/em> and the Philadelphia<\/em> Confessions. It includes familiar language to the older English Baptist confessions (i.e., the Standard Confession<\/em> and the Orthodox Creed<\/em>), such as \u201cGod alone is Lord of the conscience\u201d and \u201ctrue liberty of conscience\u201d is enjoyed when people are free not to obey those \u201cdoctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to [God\u2019s] Word or not contained in it.\u201d[50]<\/a><\/sup> This \u201cliberty of conscience,\u201d however, does not seem to free anyone from at least some religious obligations. Chapter twenty-two (Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day) states, in article seven,<\/p>\n

As it is of the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God\u2019s appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by His Word, in a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto Him, which from the beginning of the world, to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord\u2019s day; and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian sabbath.[51]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This law of the \u201cChristian sabbath,\u201d which is \u201cbinding [upon] all men in all ages,\u201d includes \u201cordering\u2026 common affairs aforehand,\u201d the observance of \u201can holy rest all the day,\u201d and prohibits \u201cworks, words, and thoughts, about their worldly employment.\u201d[52]<\/a><\/sup> It is no wonder that many Baptists in America during the eighteenth century obeyed and lauded Sabbath laws. The Philadelphia Confession<\/em> affirms, \u201cIt is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate,\u201d and \u201cthey ought especially to maintain justice and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth.\u201d[53]<\/a><\/sup> Sabbath laws were understood to be among those \u201cwholesome\u201d laws that kept good order among their communities, and their political theology embraced the civil enforcement of this religious duty.<\/p>\n

Just like the previous confessions, the Philadelphia Confession<\/em> also upheld a limit on the jurisdiction of the state in those matters under the authority of the local church. Chapter twenty-seven (Of the Church), article seven says,<\/p>\n

To each of these churches thus gathered, according to [Christ\u2019s] mind declared in His Word, He hath given all that power and authority, which is any way needful, for their carrying on that order in worship and discipline, which He hath instituted for them to observe, with commands and rules for the due and right exerting and executing of that power.[54]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cauthority\u201d to carry on \u201corder\u201d and \u201cdiscipline\u201d within the local church includes the power to decide for themselves on matters of doctrine, the composition of their membership, and the appointment of their leaders. These fundamentals of religious liberty appear yet again, and the distinct jurisdictions of state and church are affirmed\u2014the state is responsible for civil order and good behavior, and the state is not to meddle in matters Christ has delegated to the church. Thus, the historic Baptist definitions of religious liberty through the beginning of the nineteenth century affirm religious freedom for Christians and churches, but they do not limit the influence or participation of Christians regarding civil government or the legislation produced by it.<\/p>\n

Confession of Faith of the Fundamental Fellowship (1921)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

During the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, some Baptist associations followed the example of the Philadelphia Association, writing and adopting their own distinct confession of faith. But other Baptist associations seem to have desired a simplified summary of their doctrine, since they wrote and adopted less comprehensive confessions. This may have been due to a number of disagreements among Baptists and their desire to cooperate together despite their differences.<\/p>\n

The Kehukee Primitive Baptist Association in 1777 and the Sandy Creek Association in 1816 each united around simple confessions that are much less substantial than the Philadelphia Confession<\/em>. The Elkhorn and South Kentucky Associations united together under one shared confession, known as The Terms of General Union<\/em>, which was even more mere than Kehukee and Sandy Creek.[55]<\/a><\/sup> These confessions affirmed the same fundamentals of religious liberty as those that came before them (the church\u2019s authority to decide its doctrine, membership, and leadership), but there was nothing at all about magistrates or civil governments.<\/p>\n

In 1833, the New Hampshire Confession<\/em> was \u201crecommended to the churches\u201d of the New Hampshire Convention \u201cfor adoption.\u201d[56]<\/a><\/sup> And twenty years later, J. Newton Brown published it (with slight modifications) in his booklet The Baptist Church Manual<\/em> while he was the editorial secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society.[57]<\/a><\/sup> The New Hampshire Confession<\/em> was more expansive than the short associational confessions, and it echoed much of the Philadelphia Confession<\/em>, including the limitations on civil jurisdiction in church matters.<\/p>\n

The New Hampshire Confession<\/em> of 1833\/53 became the most widely used Baptist confession of faith for about seven decades. Those fundamentals of religious liberty are recognizable in the New Hampshire Confession<\/em> as well, and there is still no reference to a separation of church and state or any doctrine that would necessitate such a thing. In the early twentieth century, however, both fundamentalists and modernists among the two major Baptist denominations in America were each promoting their own plans for the future.[58]<\/a><\/sup> The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy sparked a desire among some Baptists to write and affirm updated confessions that would address major theological issues of their day.<\/p>\n

The Southern Baptist Convention was established in 1845, having separated from the Triennial Convention (established in 1814 for Baptist cooperation in foreign missions) over its refusal to send missionaries who were slaveholders in the South. The Northern Baptist Convention was adopted as an organizational name in 1907 when various Baptist societies (other than the Southern Baptists) united after the disintegration of the Triennial Convention. It was just prior to the 1921 annual meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention that Frank Goodchild presented a confession of faith to a small group within the convention, known as the Fundamental Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention<\/em>. Those fundamentalists affirmed Goodchild\u2019s confession, but they failed in their efforts to see the whole convention adopt it.[59]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The Goodchild Confession<\/em> is only slightly more substantial than the meager associational confessions listed earlier (a notable regression from the New Hampshire Confession<\/em>), but Goodchild and his fellow fundamentalists believed that their \u201csimple confession\u201d was \u201cbut a re-affirmation of the substance of the historic Philadelphia and New Hampshire Confession of faith.\u201d[60]<\/a><\/sup> In other words, they believed that their confession was in keeping with the most widely known and representative confessions of Baptists in America for two centuries. However, for the first time in the history of Baptist confessions, the Goodchild Confession<\/em> used the word \u201cseparate\u201d in reference to the relationship of church and state. This was a momentous development in the Baptist understanding of religious liberty (though apparently unnoticed as such at the time), and it was a departure from previously held beliefs on the subject.<\/p>\n

Article seven affirms,<\/p>\n

We believe that every human being has direct relations with God, and is responsible to God alone in all matters of faith; that each church is independent and autonomous, and must be free from interference by any ecclesiastical or political authority; that therefore Church and State must be kept separate<\/em> as having different functions, each fulfilling its duties free from the dictation or patronage of the other<\/em>.[61]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not only is the use of the word \u201cseparate\u201d novel here, but it is also interesting that Goodchild began article seven by affirming that \u201cevery human being has direct relations with God.\u201d This too is unprecedented language among Baptist confessions of faith on the subjects of liberty of conscience and religious liberty. This terminology is not original to Goodchild, however. It is pervasive in E. Y. Mullins\u2019s Axioms of Religion<\/em>, which was published in 1908, and Mullins himself was an influential promoter of his innovative Baptist theological method.[62]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Mullins wrote, in Axioms<\/em>, that those churches which practice sacramentalism \u201cdim the great truth of God\u2019s direct dealing with the soul of man<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).[63]<\/a><\/sup> He claimed that the doctrine of \u201cJustification asserts man’s competency to deal directly with God<\/em> in the initial act of the Christian life,\u201d and regeneration is \u201cthe blessing which follows close upon the heels of justification\u2026 as a result of the soul’s direct dealing with God<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).[64]<\/a><\/sup> And again, Mullins wrote, \u201cIf there is any one thing which stands out above others in crystal clearness in the New Testament it is Christ’s doctrine of the soul’s capacity, right, and privilege to approach God directly<\/em> and transact with him in religion\u201d (emphasis added).[65]<\/a><\/sup> Similar citations are numerous in Mullins\u2019s Axioms<\/em>, and this concept (i.e., the man and the soul dealing directly with God) is central to Mullins\u2019s thesis and message therein.<\/p>\n

What is more, Mullins\u2019s chapter on \u201cThe Religio-Civic Axiom\u201d is a radical departure from previous Baptist expressions of religious liberty. Mullins wrote, \u201cthe entire contents of the [religio-civic] axiom is summed up in the statement that the State has no ecclesiastical and the Church no civic function<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).[66]<\/a><\/sup> In a rhetorical move similar to Thomas Jefferson\u2019s before him, Mullins pointed back to the First London Confession<\/em> of 1644 and interpreted the contents of several articles related to civil magistrates and Christian duty as having \u201cpromulgated\u201d both \u201csoul freedom\u201d and the \u201cseparation of Church and State.\u201d[67]<\/a><\/sup> Like Jefferson had done one-hundred years earlier, Mullins provided a novel interpretation of a widely accepted doctrinal statement and used the language of \u201cseparation\u201d to describe the relationship between church and state.<\/p>\n

It is beyond the scope of this essay, and it may not be possible, to provide historical evidence that demonstrates Frank Goodchild\u2019s dependence on E. Y. Mullins for his language on religious liberty. However, the data suggests that Mullins\u2019s ideas and vocabulary are present. Furthermore, because Goodchild\u2019s article on religious liberty is such a significant departure from the vocabulary and form of previous Baptist confessions, it seems more than plausible that his terminology came from some other source or influence (i.e., a source other than historic Baptist confessions). It is reasonable, then, to conclude that Mullins\u2019s phraseology was adopted by Goodchild as he formulated his assertion that \u201cChurch and State must be kept separate as having different functions.\u201d[68]<\/a><\/sup> More than a decade earlier, Mullins wrote, \u201cChurch and State might in a perfect society coalesce into one; but meantime their functions must be kept separate.\u201d[69]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Whether Goodchild drew from Mullins or not, it is certain that a new definition of religious liberty was introduced among Baptists in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1908, E. Y. Mullins used the language of \u201cseparation\u201d and \u201cseparate,\u201d which had never appeared in Baptist confessions of faith before in reference to the relationship between church and state. And in 1921, Frank Goodchild used the very same language, creating a new Baptist confessional precedent. Religious liberty among Baptists not only meant the church\u2019s authority to decide its own doctrine, membership, and leaders (as it had for centuries); it now also meant the complete separation of church and state.<\/p>\n

Baptist Faith and Message (1925)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

During the same period that the Northern Baptist Convention was experiencing the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, so too was the Southern Baptist Convention. Like in the North, some Southern Baptists wanted their convention to write and adopt a confession of faith that would summarize their beliefs and address the controversy head-on. From 1921 to 1924, E. Y. Mullins served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and he was the chairman of the Baptist Faith and Message Committee in 1925 when that committee presented a new confession of faith for Southern Baptists. In addition to these notable roles, Mullins was also the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) from 1899 to 1928. An article from the presidential archives of SBTS says, \u201cMullins became one of the most influential Southern Baptists of the twentieth century. His influence extended to all spheres of Southern Baptist life. He shaped Southern Baptist theology.\u201d[70]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Since 1925, millions of Southern Baptists have affirmed the Baptist Faith and Message<\/em>. This confession was modified in 1963 and 2000, article eighteen on \u201cThe Family\u201d was added in 1998, and there was a slight change the article on \u201cThe Church\u201d in 2023.[71]<\/a><\/sup> And yet, article seventeen on \u201cReligious Liberty\u201d has remained unchanged since 1925, with the exception of a single word.[72]<\/a><\/sup> Article seventeen states,<\/p>\n

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate<\/em>. The state owes to the church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal<\/em>, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power.[73]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of this language obviously echoes older Baptist confessions. The affirmations that \u201cGod alone is Lord of the conscience,\u201d that \u201cCivil government [is] ordained of God,\u201d and that \u201cit is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience [to the civil government] in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God\u201d are all found verbatim or nearly so in the Standard Confession<\/em>, the Orthodox Creed<\/em>, and both the First<\/em> and Second<\/em> London<\/em> confessions. However, two phrases are peculiar, and both are word-for-word echoes from E. Y. Mullins\u2019s Axioms<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We have already noted various citations from Axioms<\/em>, as well as the plausibility of Mullins\u2019s work affecting the way Frank Goodchild phrased his seventh article on religious liberty. But with the Baptist Faith and Message<\/em>, all of this evidence is brought to bear with the additional fact that E. Y. Mullins was the chairman of the committee that wrote and published this confession. If there is any doubt about Mullins\u2019s influence on Goodchild, there can be none whatever about Mullins\u2019s determinate hand in the penning the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message<\/em>. It is no surprise, then, that Mullins\u2019s \u201creligio-civil axiom\u201d appears word-perfect here\u2014\u201ca free church in a free state.\u201d[74]<\/a><\/sup> So too, Mullins\u2019s innovative interpretation of religious liberty materializes here as well\u2014\u201cChurch and State\u2026 must be kept separate.\u201d[75]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Once again, no Baptist confession of faith before Mullins\u2019s publication of Axioms<\/em> includes the vocabulary or even the concept of \u201cseparation\u201d or \u201cseparate\u201d regarding the relationship of church and state. Neither has any Baptist ever been cited explicitly arguing for the separation of church and state during the eighteenth century or early nineteenth century. The first confession of faith to include this language which was adopted by a Baptist group of any kind was written by Frank Goodchild in 1921, and it was only embraced by an obscure group of fundamentalists within the Northern Baptist Convention. This is hardly representative of widely held Baptist political theology. When an entire denomination of Southern Baptists did affirm that \u201cChurch and state should be kept separate,\u201d it was the introduction of a novel interpretation of religious liberty held by the chairman of the Baptist Faith and Message Committee.<\/p>\n

Baptists have always argued for and defined religious liberty as the authority of the local church to decide for themselves on matters of doctrine, membership, and leadership. This understanding of religious liberty is universal among Baptists. But in the early twentieth century, E. Y. Mullins led Baptists to begin thinking about religious liberty in a new way\u2014as the separation of church and state. Though they had been prompted to adopt this language one-hundred years earlier by Thomas Jefferson, Baptists had not done it until Mullins wrote of religious liberty as though it is tantamount to the separation of church and state.<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Historian Barry Hankins wrote, \u201cMost early-twentieth-century Baptists never thought to question devotional exercises in schools, Sunday laws, or prohibition.\u201d[76]<\/a><\/sup> Indeed, such practices were quite mild compared with the cooperation between state and church in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when pastors and church buildings were sometimes funded by civilly enforced taxation and dissenting churches were required to register a list of their members with a state official. It is no small matter to note that at least some Baptists agreed with and adopted these practices at the time\u2014some Baptist churches funded their buildings and ministers with civil tax dollars during the late eighteenth century. Hankins went on to say that \u201cmoderate Southern Baptist separationists of the late twentieth century oppose some or all of these practices; conservatives support them\u2026 They [i.e., conservatives] remain unconvinced\u2026 that separation of church and state as construed by twentieth-century moderates is required of Baptists.\u201d[77]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Baptists have always eagerly desired and aggressively worked for religious liberty, but only some Baptists have recently defined or argued for it as a separation of church and state. Among Baptists in America, as with their English Baptist brethren, religious liberty has universally included the freedom and authority of each local church to decide what they believe (doctrine), who they are (membership), and who they will recognize as pastors or ministers (leadership). This was true from the earliest days of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, it remained true among the growing number of Baptist churches in London (both General Baptists and Particular) during the seventeenth century, and it was the same for Baptist churches who associated together throughout the American colonies and later the United States.<\/p>\n

A comparison of Baptists confessions from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries shows a repeated affirmation of the same fundamentals of religious liberty without the slightest hint that church and state ought to be separated. Baptists repeatedly affirm a necessary distinction, but not a separation. When magistrates and civil government are addressed in these confessions, there is a clear affirmation that both institutions are ordained of God, regulated by Scripture, and intended to promote the good order of society (\u201cgood\u201d as defined by biblical ethics and \u201corder\u201d as defined by biblical instruction). A separation of church and state seems completely foreign to pre-twentieth-century Baptist confessions, even though the concept and vocabulary was promoted by Thomas Jefferson and other American Republicans as early as 1802.<\/p>\n

Something changed, however, in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century. The most widely affirmed Baptist confession today (the Baptist Faith and Message<\/em>) was originally published in 1925, and a theological moderate chaired the committee that wrote it. Furthermore, that same chairman was the author of one of the most influential Baptist volumes of all time, which articulated a new way of interpreting the doctrine of religious liberty and promoted a new way of doing Baptist theology. With a heavy emphasis on Christian experience and individualism, E. Y. Mullins led many Baptists to embrace the novel doctrine of separation between church and state.<\/p>\n

Many Baptists today, even scholarly historians, seem unaware that Mullins\u2019s interpretation of religious liberty (as codified in the Baptist Faith and Message<\/em>) is both new and optional in Baptist political theology. However, the vocabulary of \u201cseparation\u201d is ground-zero for differentiating one kind of Baptist political theology from the other. Baptists have always wanted religious liberty, but only recently have any of them argued for separation. Many Baptists have no interest in a complete separation of church and state, and they are not out of step with historic Baptist theology or practice. In fact, they share the perspective of most of their Baptist forebears.<\/p>\n

Post-Script:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The interested reader might find it illuminating to peruse sources of Baptist thinking on the subject of religious liberty that does not promote, and in some cases rejects, Edgar Young Mullins\u2019s articulation of a complete separation of church and state. As this essay has argued, one must not assume anachronistic or universal definitions for phrases like \u201cliberty of conscience,\u201d \u201creligious freedom,\u201d or \u201creligious liberty.\u201d Baptists have used this language for centuries, but not all Baptists meant the same by it. Furthermore, some Baptists have argued for the opposite of a complete separation, and the practices of Baptists provide texture and color for their rhetoric on the subject.<\/p>\n

I recommend the following resources and authors, in chronological order.<\/p>\n

First, Isaac Backus (1724-1806) was a prolific writer during the mid-eighteenth century, and a good bit of his work can be found in William McLoughlin\u2019s Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789<\/em>, published in 1968 by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n

Isaac Backus was first a Separatist and then a Separate Baptist who pastored a church in New England for five decades. His ministry efforts far exceeded his own congregation, however, and Backus was a major figure in the Baptist effort toward religious liberty during the founding era of America. In one particular pamphlet, A Fish Caught in His Own Net<\/em>, Backus affirmed that church and state \u201cnever ought to have\u2026 union together,\u201d but he also promoted a relationship of \u201csweet harmony between them.\u201d In stating his own view, Backus believed that \u201ccivil rulers ought to be men fearing God, and hating covetousness, and to be terrors to evil doers, and a praise to them who do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, Edwin Charles Dargan\u2019s Ecclesiology: A Study of the Churches<\/em>, published in 1905. You can download a free PDF version online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dargan (1852-1930) was an influential professor of homiletics and ecclesiology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he was a contemporary of E. Y. Mullins. In chapter 15 of this book, Dargan described the relationship of church and state in terms of \u201cseparation\u201d and \u201cindependence,\u201d but he said, \u201cThis, of course, does not mean, and cannot mean, that they should have no connection whatever with each other\u2026 They must\u2026 have many interests in common, and in fact their relations are very real and very intimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Third, Obbie Tyler Todd is a present-day historian uncovering a more accurate and complex version of the Baptist story relating to religious liberty. His 2022 publication, Let Men Be Free<\/em>, is especially helpful in exposing the reality of Baptist Federalists during the early days of America. As cited in a footnote of this essay, Todd argues, \u201cBaptist leaders such as Hezekiah Smith, Samuel Stillman, Oliver Hart, Morgan Edwards, James Manning, and a host of others were not as Jeffersonian as many have assumed, and they were certainly not interested in erecting a bilateral \u2018wall\u2019 between church and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cViews of Individuals in Southern Baptist Congregations on Baptist Political Theology,\u201d A Survey Of Southern Baptist Laity And Congregational Leaders (Lifeway Research, January 3\u201312, 2024). \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. \u201cViews of Individuals in Southern Baptist Congregations on Baptist Political Theology,\u201d 12. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. \u201cViews of Individuals in Southern Baptist Congregations on Baptist Political Theology,\u201d 27. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Thomas S. Kidd, Paul D. Miller, and Andrew T. Walker, Baptist Political Theology<\/em> (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2023). 551. Emphasis added. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Mohler\u2019s public address at the National Conservatism Conference in 2024 shows that he is in keeping with the sort of Baptists who fit within the \u201cReformation tradition\u201d (as described in Part One of this essay), who desire religious liberty without a complete separation between church and state. In fact, Mohler wants to \u201cmaximize the Christian commitment of the state.\u201d R. Albert Mohler Jr., \u201cThe Impotence of Secular Conservatism,\u201d American Reformer<\/em> (blog), July 16, 2024. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Daniel Dreisbach argued that the \u201cJeffersonian metaphor\u201d of a \u201cwall of separation\u201d has \u201ceclipsed and supplanted constitutional text in the minds of many jurists, scholars, and the American public\u201d after and largely because of the majority opinion, written by Justic Hugo L. Black, in Everson v. Board of Education<\/em> (1947). Daniel L. Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and The Wall of Separation Between Church and State<\/em> (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003). p. 5. This essay will argue that the language of separation entered into Baptist vocabulary four decades earlier through the major influence of Edgar Young Mullins. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. The five confessions selected have had significant influence in the development of Baptist theology (both in England and in North America), and they are a sampling of dominant beliefs and practices among Baptists at various points in history and in different social and political contexts. Thus, some historical context will explain how these confessions came to be, how they are related, and how they have specifically addressed the issue at hand. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. Hugo Black, Everson v. Board of Education<\/em>, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), No. No. 52 (U.S. Supreme Court February 10, 1947). \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. Philip Hamburger has argued that Justice Black created a new legal precedent for interpreting the language of the First Amendment on the basis of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s own innovative interpretation at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). Nathan Chapman and Michael McConnell agree with Hamburger, and Daniel Dreisbach argued the same in the same point a year before him. Nathan S. Chapman and Michael W. McConnell, Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience<\/em>. Inalienable Rights Series (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023). Daniel L. Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and The Wall of Separation Between Church and State<\/em> (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003). \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  10. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em>, 158. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  11. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em>, 158. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  12. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State, 161. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  13. Obbie Tyler Todd shows that Republicans and Federalists were both striving to seat their own political candidates in the high office, and that Republicans saw some Baptist leaders as a threat to their efforts. One way to combat this threat was for Republicans to claim that religious influence was not desirable in civil affairs, which was the exact opposite approach of the Federalists, many of whom were Baptists. Obbie Tyler Todd, Let Men Be Free: Baptist Politics in the Early United States 1776\u20131835<\/em>, Monographs in Baptist History (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2022). See especially \u201cBaptist Federalists,\u201d 82\u2013101. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  14. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em>, 161. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  15. Hamburger, 155\u2013180. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  16. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em>, 162. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  17. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State<\/em>, 177. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  18. R. Stanton Norman, More Than Just a Name: Preserving Our Baptist Identity<\/em> (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 41. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  19. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 43. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  20. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 41. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  21. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 42. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  22. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 42. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  23. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 151. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  24. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 158. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  25. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 41. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  26. E. Y. Mullins, The Axioms of Religion: A New Interpretation of the Baptist Faith<\/em> (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1908), 54. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  27. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 50. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  28. The section below on Confessions of Faith, especially the Baptist Faith and Message, will describe this connection and phenomenon. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  29. Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, and Michael A. G. Haykin, The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement<\/em> (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2015). 342. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  30. Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 151\u2013152. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  31. Brandon J. O\u2019Brien, \u201cIsaac Backus,\u201d in Baptist Political Theology<\/em> (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2023), 175\u201397. 175. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  32. Brandon J. O\u2019Brien, \u201cIsaac Backus,\u201d in Baptist Political Theology<\/em> (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2023), 175\u201397. 175\u2013176. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  33. O\u2019Brien has written more extensively on religious liberty and Isaac Backus. See Brandon J. O\u2019Brien, Demanding Liberty: An Untold Story of American Religious Freedom<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2018). This single sentence does not represent the totality of O\u2019Brien\u2019s work on the subject. However, it is indicative of the sort of assumption about religious liberty (i.e., liberty equals separation) that even the best Baptist historians can make. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  34. Obbie Tyler Todd is a notable exception, and he wrote, \u201cBaptist leaders such as Hezekiah Smith, Samuel Stillman, Oliver Hart, Morgan Edwards, James Manning, and a host of others were not as Jeffersonian as many have assumed, and they were certainly not interested in erecting a bilateral \u2018wall\u2019 between church and state.\u201d Obbie Tyler Todd, Let Men Be Free: Baptist Politics in the Early United States 1776\u20131835<\/em>, Monographs in Baptist History (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2022). 83. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  35. See Timothy George\u2019s explanation of the historical relationship between the Anabaptists and the English Baptists. Anabaptists predate English Baptists, and both share many similarities on various points of doctrine. However, a \u201cgenetic connection\u201d is \u201cnot proved.\u201d Therefore, it is historically accurate to distinguish self-conscious Baptists from their Anabaptist brethren. John Albert Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, ed. Timothy George and Denise George (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999). 6. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  36. \u201cModern scholars have detected\u2026 distinct stages or periods in Smyth\u2019s ecclesiastical identity: Anglican, Puritan, Separatist, Baptist, and would be Mennonite\u2026 In his Baptist phase Smyth authored\u2026 his \u2018Short Confession of Faith in 20 Articles.\u2019\u201d James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study<\/em>, 1st ed (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009). 24\u201325. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  37. William Latane Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, ed. Bill Leonard, Second Revised (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2011). 93. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  38. \u201cBy 1608 governmental \u2018harassment\u2019 caused Smyth\u2019s congregation to emigrate to Amsterdam\u2026 Within a year Smyth on the basis of his re-baptism and the baptism of other members by affusion constituted a Baptist congregation.\u201d Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study<\/em>, 23. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  39. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 95. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  40. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 33. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  41. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 33. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  42. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 114. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  43. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 115. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  44. Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study<\/em>, 37. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  45. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 362. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  46. Chute, Et al., The Baptist Story<\/em>, 78. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  47. Chute, Et al., The Baptist Story<\/em>, 55. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  48. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 364. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  49. Chute, Et al., The Baptist Story<\/em>, 55. The two additional articles address \u201cthe singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs\u201d and \u201cthe imposition of hands upon baptized believers as \u2018an ordinance of Christ.\u2019\u201d Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 365. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  50. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms,<\/em> 80. See also article forty-six of the Orthodox Creed. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 344. See articles twenty-four and twenty-five in the Standard Confession. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 213\u2013214. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  51. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 81\u201382. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  52. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 82. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  53. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 83\u201384. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  54. Broadus, Baptist Confessions, Covenants, and Catechisms<\/em>, 86. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  55. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 371\u2013376. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  56. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 377. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  57. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 377. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  58. Baptists were not alone in the controversy between fundamentalism and modernism. Presbyterians experienced divisions in their institutions as well. J. Gresham Machen was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America and a New Testament professor at Princeton seminary. In 1923, he wrote and published Christianity and Liberalism<\/em> as a public argument against modernism. He and other professors left Princeton and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. Machen was suspended from ministry by the PCUSA in 1935, and he founded the Orthodox Presbyterian Church six months before he died on January 1, 1937. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  59. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 397\u2013398. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  60. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 399. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  61. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 400. Emphasis added. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  62. See Norman, More Than Just a Name<\/em>, 41\u201363. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  63. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 43. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  64. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 54. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  65. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 63. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  66. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 185. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  67. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 188. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  68. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith<\/em>, 400. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  69. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 195. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  70. \u201cOur Presidents: E. Y. Mullins: 1899\u20131928,<\/a>\u201d Archives & Special Collections of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, n.d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  71. During the annual meeting of Southern Baptists in 2023, Article VI on \u201cThe Church\u201d messengers modified two sentences. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 affirmed that the church\u2019s \u201cscriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.\u201d The adopted language now affirms, \u201cIts two scriptural offices are that of pastor\/elder\/overseer and deacon. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor\/elder\/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.\u201d See the 2000 version. \u201cComparison Chart<\/a>,\u201d The Baptist Faith and Message, n. d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  72. In 1963, the third sentence was changed from \u201cThe state owes to the<\/em> church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends\u201d to \u201cThe state owes to every<\/em> church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends\u201d (emphasis added). See \u201cComparison Chart<\/a>,\u201d The Baptist Faith and Message, n.d. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  73. See 1925 version. \u201cComparison Chart<\/a>,\u201d The Baptist Faith and Message, n.d. Emphasis added. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  74. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 185. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  75. Mullins, Axioms of Religion<\/em>, 195. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  76. Barry Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture<\/em> (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2002), 134. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  77. Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon<\/em>, 134, 136. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A historical exploration showing that Baptists long affirmed religious liberty without requiring a separation of church and state, tracing the shift in the 20th century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1049,"featured_media":30173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"The Historic Development of Baptist Perspectives on Church and State","_seopress_titles_desc":"A historical exploration showing that Baptists long affirmed religious liberty without requiring a separation of church and state, tracing the shift in the 20th century.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,8,1977,38],"tags":[770,1614,398,2434,114,833,2449,82,84,2433,2447,1454,122],"scripture-reference":[],"post_folder":[],"ppma_author":[2448],"class_list":["post-30161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-longform","category-november-2025","category-theme","tag-baptist","tag-baptists","tag-bible","tag-christian-tradition","tag-church","tag-history","tag-liberty","tag-political-theology","tag-politics","tag-reading","tag-separation-of-church-and-state","tag-state","tag-theology"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Liberty-Not-Separation-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-13 11:08:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":2448,"user_id":1049,"is_guest":0,"slug":"marc-minter","display_name":"Marc Minter","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/marc-minter.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/marc-minter.jpg"},"author_category":"1","job_title":"","church_city_state":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","church_site":"","user_url":"","description":"Marc Minter<\/strong> has served as the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church Diana, in Diana, Texas, since 2014. He is married to Cassie and has two sons, Micah and Malachi. He has an M.Div. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Ph.D. student in historical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1049"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30161"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30205,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30161\/revisions\/30205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-reference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-reference?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=30161"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=30161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}